Russia looms large before Biden, Modi virtual meet | Russia-Ukraine war News

Biden is expected to urge a harder line on Russia as India continues to take a neutral stance on the invasion of Ukraine.

United States President Joe Biden is set to meet virtually with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and is expected to urge New Dehli to take a harder line on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

India’s neutral stance towards the war has raised concerns in Washington and earned praise from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who lauded India this month for judging “the situation in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way”.

Most recently, India abstained when the United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council over allegations that Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in rights violations that the US and Ukraine have called war crimes.

The vote was 93-24 with 58 abstentions.

Biden will talk about the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine “and mitigating its destabilising impact on global food supply and commodity markets”, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday.

Biden and Modi will discuss “strengthening the global economy, and upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific”, she said.

Biden had previously said India was “somewhat shaky on Ukraine”, where the discovery of hundreds of civilian bodies following a Russian withdrawal from the towns surrounding Kyiv has sparked further international outrage.

The US has made clear it does not want to see an uptick in Russian energy imports by India.

Lured by steep discounts following Western sanctions on Russian entities, India has bought at least 13 million barrels of Russian crude oil since the country invaded Ukraine in late February. That compared with some 16 million barrels for the whole of last year, data compiled by the Reuters news agency shows.

The US Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics, Daleep Singh, who visited India recently, said the US will not set any “red line” for India on its energy imports from Russia but does not want to see a “rapid acceleration” in purchases.

The meeting – which precedes a “US-India 2+2 Ministerial” including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, India External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and India Defense Minister Rajnath Singh – comes as New Dehli continues to try to balance its ties with Russia and the West.

India is a member of the so-called Quad grouping – which also includes the US, Japan and Australia and ostensibly serves as a regional bulwark against Chinese expansion – but has not imposed sanctions like other members.

Russia has long been India’s biggest supplier of defence equipment despite growing purchases from the US in the past decade.

Biden and Modi will also discuss cooperation on a range of issues including ending the COVID-19 pandemic, countering the climate crisis, strengthening the global economy, and upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, Psaki said.

The two leaders had last spoken in March as part of wider meeting of Quad leaders.